


dearly beloved

by relationshipcrimes



Series: entomology [10]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2020-03-06 18:06:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18856264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/relationshipcrimes/pseuds/relationshipcrimes
Summary: Terrible creatures, them. Lovely couple. But terrible creatures.





	dearly beloved

The Wyrm was full of teeth from the moment he came to be. The other gods haven’t the faintest idea where the creature came from; only that they blinked one day and the next thing they knew, some fungal monstrosity had pulled itself up by the roots and fallen in love with the silly Wyrm, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Terrible creatures, them. Lovely couple. But terrible creatures.

Certainly no problem so long as they stayed where they were; but the Wyrm—this Wyrm, in particular—ah, there’s a _certain something_ about the Pale Wyrm.

Relentlessness, maybe. Cutthroat-ness. A willingness to do _anything_. An absoluteness of conviction.

No, no—words do not do a creature like the Wyrm justice.

Stories, by far, do better.

 

*

 

The ruthlessness of a Wyrm is a matter of survival. You can only ever have one in the area, and any batch of siblings born from the same brood have to sort out the difficulties sooner rather than later. But usually the way the story goes is that the siblings fight amongst each other, cull and eat the weak, and are eventually driven out by their parents, who return to the same breeding grounds to produce again. The Wyrm children skulk off into their separate spheres, and hopefully by then there’s at least half a dozen of Wyrm siblings living in grudging, long-distance respect of each other and each others’ territories.

What it is that’s so alarming to a person about a zealot, or a fanatic? Even to gods, who benefit the most from a religious zealot, to meet such a creature is always alarming. There’s something about the strength of their conviction that gives them license to do anything, be anything, to let nothing stand in their own way, not even themselves and their own morals.

But the Pale King’s first religious believer was only himself: alone in the nest, surrunded by elder brothers and sisters full of teeth and fury, and only he, himself, and his to determine his fate. Nobody else would stand for him and his right to live. If he wanted a future beyond that dark nest, he would have to be his army of zealots, just him and his teeth and his own belief in his right to live, to have, to own, to conquer.

The Pale King, it is said, was the runt of the litter. By all expectations, the thing was made to be food for his betters.

He killed and ate first his siblings, and when his parents returned to the breeding nest, killed and ate them too.

 

*

 

They say that love is a type of madness. The White Lady had never been inclined to agree. There is only one kind of madness in this world, and it is conviction; mild convictions are mild madnesses; absolute convictions are absolute madnesses. When she told him this, her dear Wyrm tilted his head and wondered, in his soft-spoken voice, if love was a type of conviction, then; if they could theorize that love was a type of belief in itself.

Of course you would think so, beloved, the White Lady replied fondly. You would think so.


End file.
